School Club Blues

I’m a rule loving, convention abiding, consistency seeking individual (exciting right!?!) and as such Japanese high schools have often been inherently attractive to me. From the first time I set eyes on those invariably flattering uniforms to the time I realized that I could have lunch on rooftops, to a gazillion school based animes later that have lead me to realize that having students on cleaning duty is probably great for discipline but not so much for cleanliness. I really think I would have done well in that system.

hooray – convention!!!

And the cherry on top of the reglementation sunday? Occasionally mandatory school clubs to nicely regiment to tiny amount of free time you could scrape together! Really the only downside I can see is that you almost never get alone time but I am lead to believe that’s what those rooftop lunches are for.

Despite me being…me… I did in fact participate in a surprising amount of school activities. They weren’t called clubs though, that’s a big loss. I was in band throughout high school. I played on the badminton and basketball teams, being almost a full foot shorter than some of my teammates was hilarious. I was part of the green party and volunteering initiative. Man I am such a nerd. But none of these had the cozy charm of anime school clubs. They were all pretty basic as well. It’s not like students could start their own clubs so every school had the same ones.

I would have jumped at a literary club or an occult one where students are left to their own devices and solve mysteries. There’s a small chance anime school clubs are romanticized or dramatized for effect but it’s probably really minor. I’m sure real school clubs are pretty much just like what we see in shows.

snacks at every meeting

So I’ve been wondering, if given the chance, which club would I choose? When it immediately hit me, choosing clubs is for sheep, protags make their own clubs then bribe people into joining and trick faculty advisors to sign their form. And I’m no sheep!!! So let’s all create the most perfect school club together.

****Some weeks ago I tweeted out a few questions/polls asking those of you who follow me on twitter to answer cryptic school club related question for me. This is what it was all about. I’m going to try to use the answers I collected to put together this post. This is in fact something I’d love to do more in the future so if you would like to take part in such polls please consider following me there. Wow, this felt really awkward. Was it awkward for you guys as well? I promise I won’t do stuff like this too often. OR I’ll get better at it. One of the two.****

The great thing about making your own club is that you can pick what it’s going to be about. Oh man, I think I just gave away my secret identity as Captain Obvious! Pretend I said nothing. It seems most of us tend towards more intellectual ventures rather than physical ones, by this I mean sports was not a popular club choice. In fact a literature or study club just narrowly beat out more esoteric options like game or occult clubs. both where quite close though so maybe we can combine them. We can make a club for creating a supernatural themed visual novel! We got your litterature and occult covered as well as your gaming (visual novels are games!) and I bet we’re going to have to study up at least a little on VN maker before we can get it out.

hmmm, ok to move this scene we’ll have to…

This is actually pretty exciting. I bet if we combined our talents we really could come up with a very interesting story and visuals to go with it. Judging from some of the blogs I visit, a few of you are also very comfortable with programming. This could turn out to be pretty good. And if we release it free on Steam, we’ll get a few thousand downloads no matter what. Watch out Doki Doki!

Since it’s a brand new club, we’re not going to be able to get too picky with membership. Obviously we’re going to get at least one pervert, so let’s aim for the harmless well meaning type. Ok… I guess that’s going to be me. We’re also going to have at least one serious bookworm. For the other 2 (everyone knows you need at least 4 members to have a club!), You guys said we should aime for the class chuunibyou and I have to agree. Those crazy kids are the best. This said, if the game veers into supernatural territory (which it will) they could prove a bit difficult to control. I think we should try to get at least on more to help us out and apparently we ought to try for the ultra rare genki tsundere. Sooooo, anyone going through menopause?

I’m not entirely sure what the normal schedule for school club activities is. Since ours is going to be the best ever though, we should probably come up with a firm time table so that we don’t end up wasting our lives with school club fun 24/7. There is such a thing as too awesome after all!

too much fun….

Normies would probably expect their club to be after class until sometime before dinner. That way you can also do homework together if need be. But since our club is somewhat digital in nature, we can easily work from home as well. I say considering all the different time zones we got to juggle, we can simply have club activities for an hour before bed. It will be a great way to catch up with our friends and wind down at the end of the day!

You know, I think we should also get uniforms. It’s usually reserved for the sports teams but I think we’ve earned it through sheer awesomeness. Wait, it might be tough to get the budget approved. Ok then matching accessories. Let’s all get pins. Like Lab mem pins but symbolizing our new game. As soon as one of you creates our logo that is!

Nice!!! I’m really happy with how this turned out guys. You really did create the best club ever. Honestly, if this had been an option in high school, I would have been all over this club. I hope you like it as well!

23 Responses

People who have real school clubs are so fortunate! When I was young, there were none in any of the schools I attended.

And while we had no uniforms, girls had to keep their skirts at least two inches below the knee (among other requirements). If it was close, the teacher would make them kneel on their skirts and measure it. If they were really close but not quite there, they would have to go into the girl’s room and rip their hems out to qualify. If not they sat in the office while parents were called to bring out “decent” clothing. They didn’t keep loaners.

That is the world I grew up in. Today many US big city schools are extremely relaxed about such things.

Nah, just lucky! It only counts as “smurt” if I can trick you students into buying my gravure mags for me. . .(Wait, this just can’t have anything to do with why my IRL teaching career was such a disaster. . .could it?)

Student-run cleaning service isn’t so bad… I remember sacrificing both my mornings (7:15am) and lunch hours for cleaning duties in elementary school, and boy did I try to sweep up every leaf! The bathrooms always stank, but oh well…

Your club sounds very fun! I’d probably be a classic bookworm/closeted chuunibyou.

In my high school years, we only have the common clubs — Math, Science, Glee, and Literature clubs. I only got to be in the Lit and we didn’t have much fun activities.

College is more fun, though, because of the many different types of organizations (varsitarian, socio-cultural, religious, etc) and the many events they hold. There are also frats and sororities which may or may not have bad reputations. Tho organizations are the same.

Also, I enjoyed reading this! Clubs are some ways to get other life experiences while having fun with friends. 😊

I can’t believe you snatched up “harmless well-meaning pervert” from right under my nose. For shame, Irina. Can we share the role? If not, I know how to use Visual Novel Maker. I even wrote about it a while back.

I was in a bunch of music clubs at school — the concert band, the dance band (which rehearsed after the concert band), the orchestra, the chamber orchestra and the choir. Being part of those clubs was a highlight of my school years, I think — though mostly for the experience of rehearsing and performing rather than for the actual friends I made, in retrospect. I was far too nervous to try and engage with people I knew from music clubs outside of the context of the groups!

There were no anime (or even film) groups at my school. Very few people knew what anime was; my friends only knew because I had a boxful of promotional Manga Video VHS tapes that my brother had acquired from somewhere or other and we occasionally watched the 18-rated ones in the hopes of seeing tits. (This is primarily how one of the first anime I ever saw turned out to be Urotsukidoji, and I only regret that *slightly*)

I kind of miss living in the formal structure of a school like that. Having mandated time for “club activities” is something I think I would probably respond well to, particularly if there was a club (or the facility for creating a club) relevant to my interests.

Oh gosh yes. Who wants to hang out with *work* people? I try and keep my personal and professional lives as separate as possible… I’ve been burned once or twice, so even though I’m sure my current colleagues and I would get on outside of the office, I don’t pursue it.

Of course, I also don’t have many local friends either. Oh well. The Internet will have to do!

I’ve often thought about school clubs too, they are very enticing! I did zero extra-curricular activities during my high school days but had it been a club and appealing to my interests… well okay I still probably wouldn’t attend, I valued my free time too much. But the idea is nice! But being reincarnated into the Japanese schooling system sounds like a real life isekai I could be into!